you first off definately, if you're planning to do muscle and fat reduction specific phases want to start with muscle. every bit of muscle you pack on burns more calories throughout the whole day, lets you work out better and makes you a fat burning machine. muscle quickly = good. personally i think its best to stick with, especially during the easy first few weeks when gains will be massive, to compound stuff only. for first few weeks after a long time of not doing any weights you will have a stupidly fast recovery and big gains and not taking advantage of it is shooting yourself in the foot. 3/4 times a week for a couple weeks, squats, chest presses and other compound exercises and you'll gain a lot of muscle IF you're eating enough protein. its also very much best in this period to eat enough calories to let you build muscle, and to not feel tired as you're increasing fitness, this will all make the weeks after easier and faster going.
protein wise, if you're cycling goals weekly/bi weekly or whatever, you want to probo eat around a 1gram per lb area to maintain muscle. if you're a point where you feel you're gaining mucles easily, pump up that protein, 250-300grams a day and you can feel the muscle gains if you're working out right. sometimes more, sometimes less, if you feel you're eating that much protein and not gaining fast, change up training schedual and exercises for a couple weeks and maybe drop protein intake. keeping your body out of a rut is fairly important.
another word on compound exercises. i personally find it far easier to build compound strength, back, thighs, stomach, and all core area's first. if you're doing squats you'll get a lot of benefit even if you don't specifically hit things like biceps, the lifting weight and holding weight while doing squats is actually helping. core strength first then specific muscle groups. if you're got a weak back/abs/shoulders then building biceps is harder work, and slower going.
i'm also one of those whose of the opinion that, you can optimise when you work out, exactly when you eat, but if you go old skool and easy, work out whens convinient and best for you, eat some of what you enjoy, don't skimp on nice foods too much, find some tasty foods that aren't bad for you and don't go to overboard you're far more likely to stick with working out and eating right. its all well and good spending weeks/months researching and trying to find the perfect routine, but you often end up using too much advice, making your routines, workout and meal times to exact, to perfect and its incredibly hard to stick to. you get frustrated as you miss one work out or meal time and you've convinced yourself you won't lose weight for the next few days because you screwed up, put to much pressure on yourself and end up giving up.
sure some people find it easy to stick to a complicated routine, but i think a lot more people end up quiting than the people that stick to the easy method of, eat "generally" well, work out every other day and just lead a healthy life. basics like don't do heavy weights workouts everyday is just common sense, you'll over work your body. aim to do 3-4 workouts a week(after initial easy phase) and give an area a few days break, so if you do biceps/triceps, don't focus on them till a couple or workouts later. keep it simple, keep it easy, and you'll keep at it.
